The Select Academic Speaker: Containing a Large Number of New and Appropriate Pieces, for Prose Declamation, Poetical Recitation, and Drammatic Readings ...

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J.H. Butler & Company, 1878

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Page 284 - And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, •An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers...
Page 502 - Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one hour more 'twill be eleven ; And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot ; And thereby hangs a tale.
Page 404 - OF Nelson and the North, Sing the glorious day's renown, When to battle fierce came forth All the might of Denmark's crown, And her arms along the deep proudly shone ; By each gun the lighted brand, In a bold determined hand, And the prince of all the land Led them on.
Page 391 - WHEN Freedom from her mountain height Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there ! She mingled with its gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies, And striped its pure celestial white With streakings of the morning light, Then, from his mansion in the sun, She called her eagle bearer down, And gave into his mighty hand The symbol of her chosen land...
Page 497 - Look here, upon this picture, and on this, The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See, what a grace was seated on this brow ; Hyperion's curls ; the front of Jove himself ; An eye like Mars, to threaten and command...
Page 273 - Then she runneth and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.
Page 309 - Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, The spirit he loves remains; And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains. The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead.
Page 310 - I hang like a roof, — The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair, Is the million-colored bow; The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, While the moist Earth was laughing below.
Page 405 - Like leviathans afloat Lay their bulwarks on the brine; While the sign of battle flew On the lofty British line — It was ten of April morn by the chime. As they drifted on their path There was silence deep as death ; And the boldest held his breath For a time. But the might of England flushed To anticipate the scene ; And her van the fleeter rushed O'er the deadly space between.
Page 60 - I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors. For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are...

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